


Recovery

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Daisy Takes Control, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Guilt, Post Hive, Romance, body issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 12:05:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6657094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy learns to forgive herself, and Coulson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recovery

**one**

She doesn’t talk about it.

Of course.

To the point where Coulson tries to maybe get Andrew to have a word with her.

“I don’t have to tell you the reasons why it’s not appropriate for me to treat SHIELD agents again,” Andrew replies.

“No, I get that,” Coulson says, feeling guilt he’s even asking. May has told him that Andrew is considering whether to go back to treating patients in the future, after everything that’s happened. “I didn’t mean talk to her as a therapist. I meant as a friend.”

“Why don’t you do that yourself?”

Coulson stops walking.

“I don’t think she’d want to talk… to me. About this.”

He can hardly think of something more horrifying for Daisy than the man who unleashed her tormentor on Earth trying to comfort her. She wouldn’t have had to go through all this trauma if it wasn’t for him.

Andrew looks at him in a way that used to scare Coulson shitless when they were younger. It still does, apparently.

“I can’t afford to treat one of you,” he says. “And I definitely can’t afford to treat _both_.”

“What does that mean?”

The other man gives Coulson one of his enigmatic smiles. They have always unnerved Coulson.

“It means that you better than anyone should know that Daisy will come out of this stronger than ever,” Andrew says.

He’s right. Coulson knows this. He has faith in Daisy, always did. But the idea bothers him, that she has to be so strong all the time - she shouldn’t have to.

“That doesn’t mean she shouldn’t have someone to talk to,” Coulson argues.

“You’re right,” Andrew tells him, adjusting the strap of his bag. “But I’m going home to Melinda and I’m going to take care of myself first. It can’t be me.”

Coulson nods.

Fair is fair. He just thought that since Andrew and Daisy shared an important bond - and they had saved each other’s lives in the end, without _both_ of them they could have never gotten rid of Hive.

Daisy doesn’t say much, doesn’t speak of it. Simmons told him that she had tried to get her to talk.

“And?”

Simmons shakes her head. Looking apologetic, like she should have done more somehow.

Coulson finds it easier to comfort Simmons right now, talk to her about this, than Daisy.

“It’s not your fault, Jemma. This is what Daisy does - what she’s had to do all her life. Pretend she’s fine until she is. It’s a survival mechanism.”

Coulson considers leaving it alone. She’s doing fine. She’s training a lot. She’s going on regular missions. Coulson resents Lincoln for having left her after the dust settled, when she needed someone by her side the most.

She’s applying herself to work a lot (Coulson can’t lecture for that, they’re alike in this, and he’d be an hypocrite to try to stop her). Clocking a lot of hours at the gym; but alone, no sparring partner, it makes sense to him that she wouldn’t…

He even finds her late one night in the shooting range.

“You’re a bit off to the left,” he tells her, having watched her in silence as she emptied the mag. “That’s unlike you.”

Daisy gives him a sideways glance.

Perhaps he shouldn’t speak to her at all, outside mission orders. They have never really talked about whether she blames him or not for what Hive did to her and her people. 

It also occurs to him that he has never watched Daisy in firearms training before. He completely skipped that part of her SHIELD education when he was too busy avoiding her because he was afraid of the possible effects of his carving mania on her. It feels like a million years ago and somehow the situation seems a bit similar. He regrets it, though, not having witnessed Daisy’s development to become one of the most skilled agents Coulson had ever met.

“I still get better marks than you,” she says, dry, but with a hint of humor. It alleviates the pressure on Coulson’s chest. At least enough that he finally considers just talking about the elephant in the room.

And for Daisy to be other than 100% accurate in the range, that’s quite alarming. It might be mental fatigue, of course. Or her own doubts about her capacity to protect people. She hesitates a lot these days. But what if it’s something else?

“Do you think it’s because…?”

“What?” Daisy asks, sounding impatient.

“Simmons told me that the infection, sharing a connection to a hivemind, it changes your biology and it takes a while to get back the balance.”

“Simmons said that. Uh?”

“Yes.”

“Well, hadn’t thought about it, but a dozen more hours in the shooting range can fix that.”

She leaves the gun on the stand, turning to Coulson and tilting her head and hips.

“Coulson, take a hint,” she says. “I don’t want to talk about it more than you do.”

“What does that mean?” he asks.

“You want to talk about how you killed Ward and that unleashed a tentacle monster on this planet?”

Her hardass act drops as soon as she realizes the effect her words have on him.

“God, Coulson, I-”

“No, please,” he says. “Please don’t apologize for this.”

She nods.

“Okay.”

It hurts, but knowing what she really thinks hurts less than what he had imagined.

He can see the tension in her throat, trying to stop the words. For Daisy saying _I’m sorry_ is an instinct, being asked not to say it requires an effort.

“You’re right. I don’t want to talk about it,” he admits.

Daisy shoves her hands into her pockets shrugging. She looks very much like old Daisy here, a gesture she used to make a lot in the early days, when she was new and completely unsure there was a place in the world or the team for her. That gesture that serves to minimize herself as much as she can. Coulson can’t say he’s missed it.

“Maybe we could just… not talk about it? Together?” she offers.

He knows that’s not a solution and is stunned that Daisy still wants to spend time with him, after what he did, after discovering how she feels about it.

“You’re also right about me getting worse marks than you. I should probably work on that, too.”

“Get in,” she tells him, handing him the extra earmuffs.

 

**two**

She cracks jokes.

Because she’s Daisy, it’s not the first time she’s done this.

Coulson can hear the fear behind them.

“What?” she says when Coulson grimaces at the latest one. “If I can’t make bad-taste jokes about being brainwashed by a tentacle monster then it truly was _all in vain_.”

Another one.

“It makes people uncomfortable,” he tells her.

She snorts on the glass of scotch Coulson offered her, as they finally talk it out one afternoon in his office. Daisy walks through it, like she’s wandering some strange room she’s curious about. Coulson watches her touch the surface of his record player.

“It’s better than freezing out there,” she tells him, leveling with him.

“Is that happening to you?” he asks.

Her time back on the field has been uneventful so far. Coulson was worried about pushing her too hard, putting her out there too soon.

“It’s the whole making decisions thing, “ she says, sitting on his desk. “It’s like my body tries to reject it.”

“Because of…”

She nods. She looks troubled. Coulson half-expects another joke. Not this time.

“I can’t stop thinking about how much easier everything felt,” she says. “I guess that’s what happens to people in cults, right? You don’t have to decide anything, all the choices are made for you, you just have to listen to the hivemind, it always knows what to do.”

Coulson has some experience with that sort of thing. He was there watching Fury slowly and painfully extricate Natasha from her conditioning - he glimpse that sense of hollowness and confusion in her. Even years later he would still look at Natasha and there it was, that flash of - longing. Because she _missed_ it. And that was just manmade control. He imagines Hive’s grip on Daisy was ten times stronger.

“What if I’m out there in the field and I can’t make a choice?” Daisy asks. “Because I remember how good it felt not to have to make any choice at all.”

“I trust your instincts.”

“But I don’t,” Daisy says. “Not yet, anyway.”

_Yet_ is good, he thinks. It means she’s hopeful.

“I need you to stop being my friend for a second,” she tells him. “I need you to be the Director of SHIELD for a moment.”

He’s not sure he can be that but -

He gives her two weeks off the field. He doesn’t think this is really a problem - she wouldn’t jeopardize the mission. And he believes that despite her doubts when the moment comes Daisy won’t hesitate to make the right call. But that’s something for her to believe, not him.

On the other hand he’s only too happy to give her a break. He’d even suggest a proper vacation if he didn’t suspect Daisy fears being around strangers more than she fears being around her team right now.

He should have expected that Daisy’s version of taking a break wouldn't involve much actual rest.

When he catches sight of her on the comms area at one in the morning, updating the security in their network Coulson quietly shakes his head and goes to the kitchen to make Daisy a coffee.

She is so distracted - old hacker Daisy with the flying fingers, Coulson admits that he could watch her do this for hours - that he manages to sit by her side without a word from her, and it’s only after a few minutes that he manages to grab her attention enough to put the warm mug in her hand.

“Thanks.”

“I thought you wanted a break,” he says.

“From missions. From doing - violent stuff. Not from work. SHIELD still needs me.”

Coulson smiles. “Always.”

She sips the coffee, giving Coulson a warm expression. Break or not, she looks better. He guesses going back to computers is a safe place for her. She seems almost cheerful tonight. Coulson is glad to have decided to come down, after all.

He points at one of the three screens Daisy is working on.

“That doesn’t look like our security protocols.”

“That’s a side project of mine,” Daisy explains. “I made a Twitter bot so that people can block anti-Inhuman accounts.”

“I’m not sure I know what that means but it sounds helpful.”

She chuckles. “Well, the least you know about internet troll the happier your life will be.”

“I believe you.”

She finally turns all her attention to Coulson.

“I’ll be out on the Zephyr 1 tomorrow,” she tells him.

He’s surprised to hear that.

“For a mission?” he asks.

She nods. “Kind of. But I’ll just be on comms. Not on the field.”

“I see.”

“It feels a bit like old time, doesn’t it?” she says. Coulson gives her a questioning look. “Me as your communications officer person. That’s why you offered me a job in SHIELD in the first place. Because of my skills with this. Not because I was going to end up being a badass specialist and then get earthquake powers that would come in handy on missions - when I’m not using them to try to kill you all.”

She lets out a sad, little laugh.

“That’s not why I offered you a job,” Coulson tells her. She seems confused by that. He touches her arm for a moment. It’s the first time he’s touched her since… she seems okay with it, but he doesn’t want to push it, it’s only a second. “Don’t get wrong. You were the best at what you did. Much better than anyone in SHIELD. But that wasn’t enough for me. And definitely not the reason I wanted to hire you.”

“Then… what was?”

“You hated _us_. You were understandably mistrustful of SHIELD. We kidnapped you and interrogated you, pretty harshly. Yet you were willing to work with us because you thought Mike Peterson deserved a chance. You put your doubts aside and your life at risk to help him. You believed in him. You were kind - that’s why I offered you a job. Because you were a good person.”

Daisy looks away for a moment, seemingly embarrassed.

Then she turns to Coulson again, with an expression he hasn’t seen in a really long time - a _painfully_ long time.

“Thank you, Director,” she says.

 

**three**

She’s still not on the field - not exactly. But she’s getting there. Coulson has stopped getting this feeling of having his chest crushed (ironically) by guilt every time he sees her. She’s doing better. Perhaps he should have listened to Andrew’s advice. 

Coulson prides himself on knowing Daisy better than anyone, but the next step of her “recovery” surprises him.

It starts in the middle of the night, Daisy knocking on his door.

“Can I come in?” she asks.

He takes a good look at her, making sure she’s not injured or anything. She looks nervous, but not distressed. That’s good. He invites her in and closes the door behind them.

“What’s wr-?”

He doesn’t finish the question. Daisy flings herself across the room and into his arms - as a manner of speaking because his arms are frozen at his sides - and presses her mouth hard against Coulson’s.

Just a handful of days ago he was asking how it was possible that Daisy still wanted to talk to him.

Now she’s kissing him.

And the message is unmistakable. There’s a hunger and a desperation to her kiss, the way she slides her tongue inside his mouth, the way she’s leaving him breathless.

He pulls her away after a moment, but Daisy’s hands are still gripping his shoulders tightly, and the closeness of her body pressed against his is having an effect on him. Mainly he’s confused, though.

“Daisy… what is this?” he asks.

“There is one good thing to come out of all this horror,” she tells him, gesturing between them. “Out of having being possessed by that thing. It made me realize how alone I had been.”

There’s something heartbreaking about the way she says it, because Coulson has never wanted that for her, he’d do anything to make her feel less alone. He wants to concentrate on her words, but she keeps touching his chest, his shoulders, like she can’t stop herself.

“Before that I was so alone. With Lincoln, that didn’t stop. I thought… it was okay. I could handle it. It wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. It though it was natural, this feeling of just being so freaking alone all the time. But it’s not. And I don’t want to feel that way anymore.”

She presses her mouth against Coulson’s again. A bit softer now, but it still feels like she’s a bit desperate about it. Coulson wonders if she’s getting that feeling she is after, the not-alone part. 

“Is this okay?” Daisy asks. “I mean, all you’ve done for me. I’m not reading this wrong, right? You feel the same.”

How can he even begin to explain what he feels for Daisy? He never could. He stopped trying very early on. He knows this is probably not what he’s supposed to be to her.

He kisses her back. He was always going to kiss her back.

“I feel the same,” he tells Daisy.

She gives him a weak smile. She looks more like herself than she’s done in weeks. That has to be a good thing. Coulson threads his hand through her hair, stroking the side of her head, _please let this be a good thing_ because he couldn’t bear to do something that might hurt her. He’s awkward, slow to respond, kissing her lips softly for a moment, then pulling back to look at her eyes. He loves her eyes - he’s only just realizing.

Daisy spreads her fingers over his chest, feeling the hammering of his heart.

“We have hurt people, but we didn’t want to,” Daisy says, in a doubtful _hopeful_ voice, like she is asking Coulson permission to forgive herself.

“No, we didn’t want to,” he answers quickly.

She drops her eyes.

“And I know that’s not an excuse-”

“ _It wasn’t you_ , Daisy,” he says. “You were being controlled. It wasn’t you who did those things.”

“And _you_ were only trying to protect us all.”

He doesn’t believe that. Not yet and maybe never. But Daisy does, and maybe that’s enough, or maybe it’s more important. That she _needs him_ to believe it, to forgive himself, to be kind to himself like he wants her to be kind to herself. That she needs him.

She becomes more aggressive then, backing them against Coulson’s king-sized bed. She tugs at his t-shirt. Coulson doesn’t hesitate to let Daisy undress him, swallows whatever doubts he has about letting her seeing him naked like this, lets her lie him on his own bed and crawl on top, pinning his body with her weight, kissing him harder than before.

He tries to arch his body to hold her, feeling unprotected like this, so naked, but Daisy stops him, hand on his shoulder, pressing him hard against the mattress.

“No,” she says, her voice very calm and resolved. “Let me.”

Coulson nods, somehow _getting it_. Someone took _this_ away from her. She’s trying to get it back, the feel of it. He’s fine this that. Daisy wraps her hand around his cock - for all her sudden proactiveness her grip is loose, gentle, like she’s secretly scared of hurting him with hands which have already hurt him - and watches him intently as Coulson gets hard, trying to hold her gaze as much as he can.

“Condoms?” she asks.

He turns his head.

“Don’t move,” Daisy tells him, clenching her knees around his hips.

“Second drawer,” he tells her.

She retrieves the packet, opens it - Coulson tries very hard not to think about the circumstances in which he decided to get it - and steps out of her sweatpants and underwear. Coulson gets it, too, why she doesn’t undress completely but she needed him to be naked, while she feels safer with the oversized loose sweater over her even as she climbs back into bed and rolls the condom down his cock and takes it in her hands, guiding him inside as she lowers herself.

Coulson is still mindful of Daisy’s “don’t move” command, but it’s very - pun intended - hard, with Daisy straddling his lap like this, making him feel things he hasn’t felt in a long time. He wants to lift his hands and run them lovingly over Daisy’s back, her hips and ass, but he wants to help her feel safe more than that. He breathes deep as he waits for her to start moving, getting a sliver of sweet friction as his body rises with each breath.

He’s about to ask if this is okay when she starts moving her hips, slowly, almost _experimentally_ , which Coulson guesses makes a lot of sense. She breathes deeply too, letting her lungs do most of the work. He’s almost grateful for how slow she’s going, even though he has to twist his fingers into the bedsheets to stop himself from trying to touch her.

She picks up the rhythm only after she runs his hands over Coulson’s chest, feeling him shake like a leaf under her fingers.

They come at the same time, eyes open wide and looking at each other.

Daisy even gives him a little surprised smile as she pants a bit - because obviously she didn’t expect it to feel this good. Coulson is not sure what that says about this but he’s rolling with it.

Once it’s done Daisy lets him move again. He holds her and lies her on her side on the bed. They kiss for a long time - wet, slow, sensitive post-orgasm kisses. Encouraged by the experience she sits up in bed and takes off her sweater. Coulson touches her stomach, and between her breasts, trying to make her feel as beautiful as he sees her. He tangles his fingers in her hair, messily, bringing her down for a kiss, tucking her against his heart, holding her like he couldn’t before.

Holding her like he has wanted to these past weeks, maybe longer.

“I don’t want you to be alone either,” he tells her, kissing her temple, right above her left eye.

Daisy lets out a chuckle of pleasure.

“Good,” she says. “Because I’ve got you now. You’re not going anywhere.”

There’s an uncharacteristically possessive edge to her voice, not just a joke, and all things considered, Coulson decides, it might be a good thing.

_Let this be a good thing_ he thinks, stroking Daisy’s hair as she gets comfortable against Coulson’s chest, as the intimacy of it startles him more than the sex did.

He thinks it is.

He believes it’s a good thing.


End file.
